Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

A silver Lining

| The simmering edge of a dark cloud; finding a sliver of light within a bad story.

The first race of the season always carries a different kind of energy. A restless energy. A quiet tension that settles over the paddock before anyone has even taken to the track. The kind of feeling that exists in the space between expectation and uncertainty, when every team still believes–still hopes- they have a chance, and every driver convinces themselves that this could be their year. Melbourne is alive with it. 

The Australian sun hangs high above the circuit, and the air carries the familiar scent of fuel, hot asphalt, and most of all, burning ambition. Mechanics move around their garages looking at last-minute details while engineers lean over screens filled with endless streams of data and cameras follow every recognizable face that passes through the paddock.

Everything looks exactly as it should. And yet, Max cannot shake this unwanted feeling that something is wrong.

Several days have passed since testing in Bahrain, yet the tension created there has not faded with distance. It has followed them across continents, lingering beneath the surface of the very first race weekend of the year, hanging in the air like humidity before a storm. 

Max feels the eyes on him as he walks across the paddock. He’s used to it by now. He knows them all. He has known them for years. The curious looks. The judgment. The anger. The jealousy. Every version of being watched, analyzed, and turned into a story before he has even said a word.

On any normal day, it wouldn’t bother him. Irritate him, perhaps. Frustrate him. But never truly reach him. Today is different. Today, something feels wrong. Deeply wrong.

The sunlight feels harsher than it should, stabbing instead of warming. Every conversation around him seems unnaturally amplified, voices blending into an overwhelming symphony of noise, as though the entire world has been turned up beyond its limit. Even the distant hum of engines seems to vibrate straight through his skull. 

There’s a tightness in his chest, subtle but persistent, like something is slowly draining him from the inside. It eats at his energy, turns strength into weakness, confidence into something unsteady, so unlike him. He hates that feeling. 

Something is not right.

He can’t afford it. Not today. Not on the first race of the season.

He lifts the Red Bull can to his lips and takes a slow sip, more out of habit than actual desire. The sweetness sits heavy on his tongue. It doesn’t help. Nothing does. If anything, he feels quite nauseous. A quiet thought settles in the back of his mind.

This isn’t going to be a good day. This is not going to end well for him or his team.

He pushes it all down before it can grow.

Before he even reaches the garage, the media swarm descends, like a raptor spotting prey. The comparison is dramatic, but not entirely inaccurate.

Microphones appear in front of him. Cameras flash too brightly. Reporters close in, stepping into his personal space as though it belongs to them.

They never learn.

Or perhaps they simply never care.

Questions fire at him before he’s even fully stopped walking. 

Max resists the urge to close his eyes against the lights. He straightens slightly instead, jaw tightening, expression slipping into an impassive one, an unbothered one.

“Max,” one of the reporters begins, shoving his microphone towards Max’s face. “How do you feel about today's race?” 

The same question every year, every race. Quite harmless on the surface. But it always carries more beneath it. Are you confident today? No. Are you under pressure? Yes. Are you worried? Yes. Are you going to fail? Most probably.

He blinks once, slowly. His head throbs harder.

He forces a small shrug, readjusting his cap. “It’s the first race. We’ll see.” 

Another microphone pushes forward immediately.

“You mentioned during testing that the new cars aren’t inspiring you. Do you still feel that way?” 

There it is.

They always managed to bring it back to awkward, tension-filled situations that had happened.

They want drama, they want friction. A headline. 

His jaw tightens even more.

Before he can respond, another voice cuts in.

“How do you feel about George Russell's comments regarding your thoughts on the cars?” 

“And Lando Norris?” someone else adds quickly. “He said drivers should be grateful just to be here.”

The headache spikes again. Harder, more present. It presses behind his eyes like something trying to fight its way out.

It’s getting hard to think. 

He feels sweat slowly gathering beneath his fireproof layer, tracing a path down his spine. The crowd seems to close in around him, the space shrinking with every passing second. The microphones feel impossibly close, hovering inches from his skin.

Too close.

For a second, the paddock noise fades. The questions thrown at him blur into static. And he’s somewhere else. 

Back during the podcast, he had days ago.

He remembers leaning back slightly in his chair, fingers playing with one of the bottles in front of him. The plastic had crinkled softly under his grip before he stilled it.

They’d asked him about the 2026 regulations. About the new directions of the sport.

“As a driver, the feeling is not very Formula 1-like. It feels a bit more like Formula E on steroids,” he’d said, almost casually.

After all, that is the reputation he has built over the years. Blunt. Unfiltered. Someone who says what others only thought. Someone who has never been particularly interested in softening his opinions to make them easier to swallow.

One of the hosts had laughed, unsure if he was joking.

“I mean it,” he’d added. “It’s all about energy efficiency and management. That’s what they stand for.” 

He remembered the slight pause before adding:

“It’s not a lot of fun, to be honest. I think the right word now is management. But yeah… It’s just not really enjoyable. It doesn’t feel like pure Formula 1.”

“Is that frustrating?” one of them had asked.

He had shrugged. “It’s different. But if I’m honest? It’s probably my least favourite regulation set so far.” 

The memory shifts. Blurs at the edges. Details bleeding into one another.

His own face appearing beside Lando’s in a thumbnail. Headlines stripped of context. Words rearranged until they became something sharper than what he had actually meant.

Then Lando’s voice. All smiles and shrugs.

“If he wants to stop, he can just stop.” 

Another fragment. Different day. Different backdrop. George standing in front of a wall covered in sponsors, hands folded neatly in front of him. His posture was composed. His expression attentive. Those unmistakable blue eyes focused on the interviewer, listening with that thoughtful seriousness he always seemed to carry.

“So, as Lando said, we’re privileged to be in this position.” 

A small feeling of disappointment at the answer had fluttered in his chest. Because some part of him had maybe expected George to understand. Just once. Maybe this one time, he had hoped he would agree.

“And in all honesty, I just want to win. I guess for a driver who’s won quite a bit recently, you do just want to have the best car and the most fun cars to drive.” 

Max remembers the slight tilt of George’s head. The way a strand of brown hair had fallen across his forehead. The almost sympathetic tone that, somehow, always managed to irritate him more than outright criticism ever could, but that he could never get enough of. 

“So yeah. Welcome to go to the Nordschleife, I guess.” 

A twist in time, the memories collide, overlap, bleeding into one another once more.

Another day. The paddock this time.

George had been walking toward him, helmet tucked beneath one arm. His hair had been a sweaty mess, pushed back unevenly, his expression drawn tight with concentration.

Max had noticed every detail before he could stop himself.

The way his jaw set. The precise way he moved, sharp and deliberate, as if everything else around him disappeared whenever he was that focused.

There had always been something about him that caught Max off guard. Something he could never quite ignore.

So he had looked away, pretending it didn’t matter.

“Want to see me gone that much?” Max had said lightly.

George had glanced up at him, the beginning of a frown already forming on his face, as if the question itself irritated him.

“If you’re that uninspired, it’s an option.”

Max had hummed, unimpressed.

“Didn’t realize you were so worried about my motivation.”

George had let out a short breath, not quite a laugh, already moving past him.

“Some of us are just happy and grateful to be here.”

That had done it.

Max’s mouth had tilted slightly.

He had known exactly what George was doing. Poking. Pressing. Trying to find the one place where he knew he could get under Max’s skin.

And Max had always let him.

“Careful,” he had said. “If I ever decide I need a new challenge, I might just tell Toto.”

A beat.

George’s expression had stilled. He had slowed down. Just slightly.

Max had kept walking.

Because he would never actually take George’s seat.

Never.

Not because he couldn’t. This sport was unpredictable. Careers shifted. Opportunities appeared and disappeared overnight. Nothing was ever guaranteed.

But because that seat was George’s. And somehow, that mattered.

Besides, it had never been a real possibility anyway.

Staying at Red Bull or leaving the sport entirely. Those were the only two paths he had ever genuinely considered.

But that had never been the point.

“Pretty sure he’d make some space,” he had added, almost absentmindedly.

Behind him, he hadn’t needed to turn around to know George’s expression had changed, the arrogance and irritation morphing into anger.

It shouldn’t have mattered.

But it did.

Max’s jaw had tightened as he kept walking.

The memory slips and shatters. The noise of the paddock rushes back in all at once—voices, footsteps, engines in the distance, the sharp glare of cameras still pointed at him from all sides.

“Max?” 

A microphone is still in his face.

He blinks once, slower this time, dragging himself back to the present. The headache is worse now. Throbbing. Insistent. It presses behind his eyes, makes everything feel just slightly out of sync.

“No comment,” he replies flatly. He can’t even remember the question, his thoughts slipping like sand through his fingers before he can catch them.

He moves past them before they can stop him.

Lap three.

Only lap three.

There’s a saying: time heals. Right now, it’s doing the opposite.

His head is pounding, each heartbeat echoing too loud inside his skull. The cockpit feels smaller, and the air is thicker and heavier than it should be. He exhales, but it doesn’t feel like enough. Inhales again, but the air doesn’t seem to reach his lungs.

Something is wrong.

He takes a mouthful of water, the tube pressing awkwardly against his lips, forcing himself to swallow. It sits heavy in his throat.

Focus.

The car ahead of him- he can’t quite tell who it is- flickers at the edges of his vision. Blurs. Sharpens again. Blurs.

He blinks hard.

Focus.

His grip tightens on the wheel, fingers pressing into the gloves, knuckles aching under the pressure. The steering feels slightly off in his hands. Or maybe it’s him.

The radio crackles faintly in his ear. He doesn’t catch what’s said.

He feels lost in his own body, a ghost trapped in a shell–a prisoner inside something that won’t quite listen anymore.

Focus.

Just a few more laps. Just get through it.

Corners seem to come faster than he expects, or maybe he’s just slower at reacting. A fraction late on turn-in. A fraction wide on exit. It stacks up. Small mistakes, one after the other, again and again.

He knows he’s gone off track. Once. Twice. Maybe more. He can’t quite keep count.

The radio crackles again, GP’s voice cutting through the heavy fog in his mind.

“Everything alright, Max?” 

He shifts slightly in his seat, trying to get a deeper breath in. It doesn’t come.

His chest tightens instead, like something is pressing down from the inside, squeezing, refusing to let his lungs expand. He lets out a dry cough that’s drowned out by the roaring of the engine.

For a split second, the world narrows. 

His vision tunnels. Darkness creeps in at the edges, swallowing the track bit by bit. The roar of the engine dulls dramatically, like it’s happening somewhere far away. 

Like he’s underwater. Like something has dragged him under without warning, the weight of it crushing down on him heavily, pulling him deeper and deeper.

He lets out a panicked gasp and blinks hard in an attempt to regain control over himself.

The world snaps back, the tide pulling back, though not fully. The edges still flicker dangerously, like they might collapse again at any second, like the tide might come crashing down on him again.

Focus.

Just focus.

“I’m alright,” he manages to rasp out with the breath he barely has. Even to himself, it doesn’t sound convincing.

“If you need to retire the car, let us know, Max; it’s alright if you do not feel able to finish.” 

He doesn’t answer. He just needs to keep it together. A few more laps. Just a few more.

Time drips like honey, and he’s stuck underneath it. The more he thinks about how long he has left, the more it stretches, the laps multiplying, dragging themselves out as if mocking him, daring him to give up. He bites down on his lip until it throbs, metallic, sharp, stinging pain, anything to stay present. Anything to stay in control.

The radio crackles. “Gap ahead 1.7. Wait to overtake.” 

Wait. Right. He understands that.

He focuses on the car ahead, its blurry orange shape dancing in front of his eyes. He tries to lock onto it—force it into focus—but it won’t quite settle. It wavers at the edges, like heat haze on tarmac.

The straight opens up. The engine note rises, but something feels off. Heavy. Even sluggish.

“Russell behind, just out of the pits. Gap 2.0. He’s pushing.”

Of course he is. 

Max exhales slowly, or tries to. It catches halfway in his throat.

Focus.

The blurry car ahead weaves slightly on the straight, breaking the tow. Max follows automatically, small movements of the wheel, barely thinking. The slipstream tugs at him anyway, pulls him closer.

Gap ahead 1.4.

Closer. He’s gaining rapidly. Yet he can’t find it in himself to be happy about it.

The braking zone is coming up. He knows this corner—knows it by heart. He’s done it more times than he can count. Always the same rhythm: brake just after the 100-meter board, down two gears, turn in with commitment, and let the car rotate before picking up the throttle on exit.

Simple.

It should be simple.

“Gap ahead 1.2. Close it up this lap, you’ve got energy available on exit.”

Max doesn’t answer. The thought of replying sits there for a second, then dissolves before it turns into anything usable as his mind drifts into an unsteady haze.

The 150-meter board flashes past on his right-hand side, followed too closely by the 100, the braking markers stacking up faster than they should, or maybe he’s just not processing them in time anymore. He doesn’t know. He’s late. His foot hesitates for a fraction of a second too long before he finally commits. Hard. 

The car reacts instantly, pitching forward as the front tyres bite aggressively under load. A sharp vibration runs through the steering wheel, up his arms, followed by a tearing scratch of a brief lock-up as one of the fronts refuses to rotate cleanly. 

“Front left lock-up,” comes GP’s voice again, rattling his throbbing head despite the calm, even tone. “Brake bias forward, you’re too sharp on entry.” 

Max barely processes any of it. Everything should be automatic by now, ingrained so deeply in him that there should be no need to think about it at all; braking, releasing, turning in, feeling the weight transfer through the chassis and responding before the conscious mind has even had time to register the action. The car should speak to him in sensations, in those tiny shifts of grip and balance that he understands almost instinctively. Instead, there is a faint, increasingly disconcerting delay between his intentions and the car's responses, as though it’s perpetually trailing half a beat behind him rather than moving in concert with him.

He feels like a rookie.

The thought is almost humiliating.

After all, the car itself is not good. It had been recalcitrant all week, the balance elusive and worryingly unpredictable. There is always something to wrestle with, some compromise to make, some imperfection to accommodate–that somehow ends up being worse once “fixed”— but he has driven worse cars than this and still found a way to make them obey.

Maybe it’s the car.

Maybe it’s him.

Either way, nothing is working the way it should.

He turns in. The front lags–hesitates, refusing to bite when he asks it to, when he needs it to, and the car drifts wider than intended, washing away from the apex as the balance fails to settle cleanly between braking and release. For a fleeting second, he has no real sense of where the car is taking him, as though he is merely steering a metal shell that has somehow become indifferent to his hands, following its own will.

The radio crackles again in his ear, a warning about track limits, but the rest of the message dissolves into static before he can grasp it.

Can’t they leave him alone?

The pressure behind his eyes returns, sharper this time, a pulse that seems to beat somewhere behind his skull. Max blinks, but the darkness gathering at the edges of his vision has nothing to do with the track. It flickers there again, creeping into his peripheral vision like a shadow he cannot seem to outrun.

He blinks harder, willing it away.

It doesn’t go. 

The next straight stretches before him, long and seemingly endless, but something about it looks subtly wrong. The car ahead slips in and out of his focus, its speedy silhouette wavering and breaking apart before knitting itself together again, like a reflection disturbed by a stone falling into water. He stares at it, trying to force his eyes to settle, to make the world hold still for long enough to actually put a hand on what he’s seeing.

Come on, come on, he tells himself, tightening his grip around the wheel until his fingers ache.

“Gap ahead, zero point nine,” GP says. “You’re closing in.” 

Max cannot summon enough breath to answer, too afraid that even speaking might fracture the last thin thread of concentration he is clinging to. His hands remain on the wheel, still making the inputs they are supposed to make, yet they feel strangely distant from him, almost detached, as though he is watching somebody else drive through his own hands. He cannot tell whether the tremor running through his fingers comes from the vibrations of the car, the growing deprivation of oxygen, or the quiet, creeping fear he refuses to acknowledge.

Another braking zone approached.

He sees it coming, knows exactly what is required of him, and yet the recognition seems to arrive without the corresponding movement.

Too fast, too close. He’s not ready. 

He knows where he should break. 

He simply…doesn’t. 

A beat passes, then another, each one impossibly expensive.

His brain is screaming at him to slow the car, but the command seems to travel through him as though through water, dulled and sluggish beneath the growing dark fog in his head. Then, finally, his foot comes down.

Late. Far too late. 

The car reacts violently this time, the front tyres biting hard while the system tries to pull energy through the braking phase, everything stacking at once without the smooth transitions it needs. And for one sickening instant he feels the rear beginning to move away from where it should be.

He catches it.

Or he tries to.

His hands move across the wheel, but the correction comes a fraction too late. 

Always too late.

What is he doing?

He barely has time to wonder before the car ahead is suddenly there, its rear wing filling his vision as the gap collapses beneath him. It is slower on entry, occupying precisely the piece of track he does not need it to occupy, and the sight of it sends something cold through his stomach.

0.6.

0.5. 

He tries to adjust the line, to move out of the wake, to find another metre of asphalt, another miserable space, anything that might give him an escape. His hands move again, trying to do something, but the world has begun slipping beyond his grasp.

And then his vision drops.

Not gradually like the first time, not slowly fading at the edges. There is no warning this time, no opportunity to blink it away.

It simply cuts.

One second, he’s struggling to focus on the car ahead, desperately trying to make sense of its shape through the blur; the next, there is nothing.

No track. No car ahead. No sense of direction. 

Only black. 

Panic spikes in his chest, but his body doesn’t follow. His hands stay on the wheel, locked into the last input, his foot still pressed to the brake, but there’s no awareness left to guide it, no actual control behind the movement.

Somewhere, distantly, he knows he should stop.

He can’t.

The car keeps going anyway, straight through a braking zone that no longer exists for him—

and into the back of the car ahead.

For a moment, time comes to a halt. Every body, every living thing seems to fall still, as though the entire world itself had frozen in silence. Only his mind continues to spiral, trembling beneath the weight of a brutal realization of what is unfolding around him, because of him, to him.

The realization of his own helplessness. Of the cruel role in which he has become nothing more than a spectator to his own fate, a fate that may have already been sealed the very moment he stepped into that car.

The collision is violent, devastating, rippling through the chassis with enough force to throw his head forward despite the HANS device holding it firmly in place. He is lost, swallowed by a chaos of carbon fiber and twisted metal as the steering wheel jerks violently beneath his grip. Nothing makes sense anymore. He is there without truly being there. Where is up? Where is down? He doesn't know. He doesn't know anything anymore.

Something crashes into his car, this metallic prison closing around him. One impact. Then, almost immediately, another, harder, more brutal, sending a sharp wave of pain tearing through his ribs. A broken breath, a strangled sound, escapes him before he can stop it.

A sharp, searing pain blooms within his chest, spreading slowly like a crack that can no longer be stopped. Like something caves inward for half a second before snapping back into place wrong.

The world spins, tilts, and spirals around him. Colors bleed into one another in a violent symphony of light and chaos behind his eyes as his car continues to twist and turn uncontrollably. Everything becomes blurred, distorted, unreal.

The screech of tires tears through the chaos surrounding him, reaching his ears through the deafening noise roaring inside his head. He can’t tell where it’s coming from. Whether it’s close. Whether it’s far away. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything anymore.

Except for one thing.

There had been cars behind him.
And now, they have nowhere left to go.

And it’s all his fault.

His helmet slams violently against the seat, and for a brief moment, he thinks he is falling once again into that deep and terrifying void, that silent abyss where his body becomes nothing more than an empty shell while his mind drifts toward an endless unconsciousness.

A few seconds later, the engine finally dies as the car crashes into the barrier. Its bodywork, once sleek and alive with motion, is now nothing more than a mangled carcass of twisted metal.

And yet, the silence does not come immediately.

Blood pounds violently through his chest, his ears, his throat, everywhere at once, so intensely that he feels as though he has become nothing more than an open wound. Somewhere within the chaos, his radio crackles faintly, and little by little, the strange wheeze of his own breathing reaches him. The sounds of the world slowly begin to return as he struggles to anchor himself back into reality.

Breathe.

But he can’t breathe properly. It feels as though his lungs have suddenly forgotten how to work.

Calm down. It’s only the shock, he tries to convince himself.

He forces himself to inhale, but even the smallest breath sends sharp flashes of pain through his chest, his lungs, through every part of him. Each breath catches halfway, shallow and suffocating, as though his body no longer has enough space to let his lungs fully expand.

And so, for a long moment, he simply remains there. Sitting in the middle of that twisted metallic wreck imprisoning him, his hands resting weakly in his lap, his empty gaze fixed on nothingness while his vision flickers in uneven waves.

The radio crackles again, this time much clearer in his ears.

"Max? Max, can you hear me? Talk to me."

Voices overlap somewhere beyond the wreckage of his car. Marshals. Engines being shut off one after another. The hurried sound of footsteps striking the concrete. Someone is shouting further down the track, their voice sharp with irritation and anger, yet close enough to make the pounding in his head throb even harder.

He can't make out the words.

They reach him distorted, muffled, as though they have to travel through water before finding their way to him.

He doesn’t even fully register that the race has been stopped.

That there’s a red flag.

That everything has come to a halt.

All he knows is that his chest hurts. That the world is still swaying dangerously around him. And that something warm is slowly trailing down the side of his neck, slipping beneath the fabric of his balaclava.

Sweat?

Or something else.

A voice comes through the radio again.

"Max, are you okay? Answer me, please."

His hand trembles as he finally manages to press the radio button. The first time he tries to answer his engineer, no words come out.

"I..."

His voice is rough, breathless, painfully weak to his ears.

"I'm okay."

The lie comes automatically, a simple reflex.

He has no desire to worry the man who already sounds so tense, so frightened for him. Besides, the pain seems to be easing. Drawing back into some quiet corner of his chest, curling in on itself, and falling silent. Becoming small. Becoming distant.

He doesn’t even know how he gets out of the wrecked car. One moment, he’s still trapped inside it, and the next, both of his feet are planted on the asphalt. Marshals swarm around him, throwing question after question his way, but he finds neither the energy nor the desire to answer.

"Yes, I'm okay."

"I'm fine."

"No, nothing hurts."

The words leave his lips automatically, without thought.

The medical team arrives, but they don’t have time to reach him before a shadow falls over him. A threatening presence. Pulsing with anger.

At first, Max doesn’t lift his head. It feels far too heavy. The circuit sways unpleasantly around him, rocking back and forth. The fencing, the grandstands, the figures moving around him all blur and shift at the edges of his vision, as though the entire world has been set adrift upon a restless sea.

But then. A voice. A familiar voice. Far too familiar.

And everything else disappears.

Time seems to stop. His heart along with it.

"What the hell were you thinking?"

Something breaks inside his chest. As though another piece of wreckage has found its way into the ruin already buried there.

George.

Deep down, he had known it was him before he ever heard his voice.

Their silence had stretched on for too long. Their furtive glances since their last argument, stolen in moments when each believed the other wasn't watching, had grown too numerous to dismiss, too meaningful to be innocent.

It was bad for them. Bad for their hearts. Bad for the fragile balance they had spent so long pretending still existed. And now, life had cornered him. Forced him to stand face-to-face with what had always been both one of his sweetest dreams and one of his cruelest nightmares.

Looking back, perhaps he had earned this punishment.

Slowly, Max lifts his head.  For a moment, he wishes he hadn’t.

George looks furious.

And all of that anger is directed at him. At every part of him. And deep inside, a fresh pain blossoms at the thought alone. 

The man in question stands only a few steps away. Not close enough to touch him, but close enough for Max to feel the anger simmering beneath his skin.

His helmet has been removed, leaving sweat-soaked strands of hair resting in disarray across his forehead. His face is flushed with anger and adrenaline alike. His body speaks for him. His eyes speak for him. Every tense muscle, every sharp breath, every glance leaves little room for doubt.

Anyone capable of seeing him would know exactly how furious he is.

George shouldn't be here. He should still be out on track. Still fighting for positions, chasing tenths, chasing victory alongside everyone else. Not standing here. Not standing in front of him.

The realization hits Max with a force almost violent enough to rival the crash itself.

George got caught in it. His race was over, ruined because of him.

Of course it was.

A bitter laugh almost rises in his throat. What a pathetic way to show someone how much they mean to you.

Some people write love letters. Some people buy flowers. Max had managed to ruin George's race. He’s the reason George's afternoon had gone up in smoke.

George is going to hate him for this. Probably even more than before. And the worst part is that he can't find a single reason why he shouldn't. Because from George’s perspective, what else is there to see?

Max had complained about the regulations more times than he could count. Complained about the cars. Talked openly about leaving. Spent months, maybe years, building a reputation that made people expect the worst from him whenever something went wrong.

And now several drivers were stranded in the gravel because he'd driven straight into another car.

The evidence wasn't exactly working in his favor.

A small, exhausted part of him wants to explain. Wants to tell George that something had been wrong long before the crash. Long before he'd even climbed into the car. That the world had begun to blur at the edges hours ago. That the circuit had seemed to sway beneath him. That he'd spent lap after lap fighting to stay present. Fighting to breathe. Fighting to keep reality from slipping through his fingers every time he blinked.

He wants to tell him that he hadn't meant for any of this to happen. That he would have wrecked his own heart before ever willingly ruining George's race. But even in his own head, the words sound hollow. Weak. Convenient. 

The sort of excuse people invent after they've already caused the damage.

So he says nothing. Because he knows that if their positions had been reversed, he would probably be thinking the exact same thing.

If he were the one standing at the side of the track, forced to retire from a race he had spent the entire weekend preparing for. If he were the one climbing out of a wrecked car because of someone else's mistake. If he were looking at a driver who had spent weeks saying he didn't want to be here anymore, that he was tired of this environment, that he was thinking about walking away.

Max doubts he would believe him either. And that is what hurts the most. 

Far more than the anger written across George's face. Far more than the accusations that will undoubtedly be thrown his way. Far more than the crash itself. No. What truly destroys him is the sudden, crushing certainty that settles deep inside his chest.

When George looks at him now, he probably sees the same thing everyone else sees. A driver who has become reckless. A bitter man. A problem. Someone who has lost his footing. And perhaps the rest of the world can think whatever it wants. Perhaps he should be used to it by now, after years spent beneath the scrutiny and judgment of others.

But George...George is different.

Because Max has never wanted to be understood by anyone as much as he has wanted to be understood by him. And now he is struck by the terrible feeling that it is the one thing he will never be given.

"I'm so tired of you, Max."

The words hit him like a slap. He doesn't dare look up. Doesn't dare meet those pale blue eyes that seem determined to burn straight through him.

"Seriously? Can't you even look at me? Can't you even answer me?"

Max senses George stepping closer. Or maybe he only hears it. It's hard to tell.

His vision won't stop swaying. The world tilts sickeningly around him, the fencing and grandstands drifting in and out of focus. He feels strangely detached from his own body, as though every inch of him has been stuffed with cotton. Heavy. Numb. Empty.

George lets out a sharp laugh, one filled more with disbelief than amusement.

"You know what?"

Another bitter laugh.

"I think I actually prefer people who admit they're assholes. At least with them, you know what you're getting."

Max swallows, and it hurts. The movement drags painfully against the knot lodged in his throat. Despite himself, a poisonous thought slips into his mind. 

Am I really that awful? Does George hate me that much?

"George, I—"

He doesn't get any further. George cuts him off before he can finish.

"Assholes don't disappoint you. They don't make you think there's something more underneath. They don't make you feel like if you dig a little deeper, you'll eventually find something worth holding on to."

For a moment, the anger in his voice gives way to something else. Something sharper. Maybe even more vulnerable.

"You do. And that's the most frustrating part."

George drags a hand through his sweat-dampened hair, his jaw tightening as though he's trying to hold something back and failing.

"Because every single time, I end up thinking maybe I got you wrong. Maybe beneath all the ego, all the aggression, all the bullshit, beneath every time you push people away before they can get too close..." 

He laughs bitterly and shakes his head. "Maybe there's actually someone better in there."

Then he points an accusing finger toward Max's chest. 

The gesture shouldn't carry so much force. It isn't even a shove. Yet when George's finger presses against him, right above ribs that are already throbbing from the crash and even before, Max instinctively stumbles backward. The world tilts unpleasantly beneath his feet, and for a second he isn't sure whether the dizziness comes from the impact or the words.

"And every fucking time," George continues, "I end up right back where I started. Wondering why I was stupid enough to believe it."

A humorless laugh escapes him once again.

"You know what makes me laugh? I keep falling for it. Again and again."

His eyes never leave Max as he keeps speaking.

"I watch you do something decent. Say something smart that makes me want to respect you. Show, for five seconds, that you're not completely incapable of thinking about somebody besides yourself. And every time, I think maybe this is it. Maybe this is the moment I finally stop being wrong about you."

His expression twists. "Then you do something like today."

The words come out quieter than the rest, nearly a whisper. Somehow, they hurt more because of it.

"And I remember why people think the things they think about you."

Something catches in Max's throat. A hard, suffocating lump that makes breathing feel like even more work. His eyes sting. His chin trembles despite every effort to keep it still. He hates the weakness of it. Hates the way his body seems determined to betray him, and he’s thankful for keeping his helmet on, hiding it all from the man in front of him, hiding it from everyone. 

But more than anything, he hates the realization slowly settling inside his chest. Because this isn't coming from today.

Today's crash may have started the argument, but it didn't create it. These aren't the words of a man angry about a single race. They're the words of someone who has been carrying this for a long time. Days. Weeks. Months. Maybe years.

Every disagreement. Every misunderstanding. Every harsh comment. Every moment where George had expected something better from him and walked away disappointed instead.

All of it had accumulated somewhere beneath the surface, packed down and ignored until there was simply no room left for it. 

And now it is spilling out all at once. Because this had been the straw that broke the camel's back.

"I don't even know why I bother talking to you."

George gestures toward him in exasperation.

"Look at you. You're not even listening. You don't care."

The accusation hits harder than anything else he has said so far.

No. That's not true.

Max cares so much that it feels as though his chest is caving in around it. He wants to answer. Wants to explain. Wants to tell George that he's listening to every word, that every accusation is finding its mark with agonising precision. But the words remain trapped somewhere in his throat, tangled together with guilt, shame, and the growing sense that nothing he says now will matter. His whole body hurts. His ribs ache with every breath, his head throbs, and his heart feels as though it's being slowly crushed beneath the weight of George's disappointment. Strangely, the physical pain has begun to fade into the background, dulled and distant, eclipsed by something far worse.

I'm sorry. George, I'm so sorry. 

I didn't mean for this to happen. 

I hate myself for it.

The words echo endlessly inside his mind, desperate to be spoken. None of them make it past his lips.

"Unbelievable."

George shakes his head, disbelief and disgust written plainly across his face.

"Even after all this, you still don't give a shit. Do you realize how many people's races you just ruined? Lando didn't make a mistake. The others behind us didn't make a mistake. You did."

He points directly at Max.

"You. It was all you."

Max lowers his gaze to the ground. The asphalt shifts beneath him in waves. Or maybe it's him that's moving. He can't tell anymore.

"And you don't even look affected by it," George continues. "You look tired. Annoyed, maybe. But not sorry."

His expression hardens.

"Never sorry."

Something twists violently inside Max's chest again. Because he is sorry. God, he is.

Sorry for the crash. Sorry for the damage. Sorry for every driver whose race ended because of him. Sorry for standing here like an idiot, incapable of forcing the words out. Sorry for every mistake that led them to this moment. But George can't see any of that. All George can see is the silence. And silence, when viewed from the outside, looks an awful lot like indifference.

"You're such a fucking idiot, Verstappen."

The words come out sharp and cruel.

"That's all you've ever been. You only ever think about yourself."

Max physically recoils. Not because of the insult itself. Because part of him realizes that George believes it. Maybe not entirely. Maybe not all the time. But enough for the words to leave his mouth. Enough for them to hurt.

"I should've known better than to—"

George cuts himself off abruptly. The unfinished sentence hangs between them. 

For one brief second, Max almost raises his head. Almost meets his blue eyes. Because there is something hidden inside those words. Something buried beneath all the anger and frustration. Something that sounds suspiciously like something that neither wants to name nor ever utter out loud. 

But George swallows the rest of the sentence before it can escape. A frustrated sound leaves him instead as he shakes his head and turns away.

"George, wait..."

The plea finally breaks free. Weak. Hoarse. Pathetic.

But George doesn't stop.

He doesn't turn around. Doesn't acknowledge him. Doesn't even slow his pace as he walks toward one of the marshals waiting nearby.

And Max can do nothing but watch him leave.

The lights in the garage are too bright. Too white. They hit him all at once, and for a moment, he has to squint against them, feeling almost blinded.

He had refused medical assistance at the scene, insisting he was fine and that he would get checked once he made it back to the garage.

In all honesty, he knows he should go. After all, whatever has been happening to him is the reason any of this happened in the first place. The blurred vision. The dizziness. The trouble breathing. The growing feeling that something inside him has been slowly coming undone, breaking apart and flickering away.

He knows he should let someone examine him. He knows it would be the sensible thing to do.

But right now, the thought of facing anyone feels unbearable.

The doctors. The engineers. The team. The questions. The disappointment.

He doesn't think he can handle any of it. So he keeps walking. And perhaps the strangest part is how little he seems to care about what happens next.

A while ago, that realization would have frightened him. Now, it barely registers. His own fate feels distant somehow, as though it belongs to someone else.

He should be worried. About his health. About the consequences the crash will have on his team. About whatever is happening to him.

Instead, he finds nothing. Only exhaustion. A deep, bone-weary exhaustion that has hollowed him out from the inside.

The pain has faded too. Or perhaps it hasn't. Perhaps it has simply buried itself somewhere deeper, hidden beneath layers of shock, guilt, and fatigue.

Either way, he can no longer tell the difference.

"Max."

The voice barely registers at first.

He keeps walking through the garage, moving with a certain kind of determination that feels increasingly disconnected from what his body is actually capable of. It isn't until the last second that he realizes someone is standing directly in his path.

He stops abruptly. It’s one of the mechanics. Someone he's worked with for years. A familiar face. A face he should be able to place instantly.

And yet, for one long, unsettling moment, his mind goes completely blank. No name. No memories. Nothing. Just the vague recognition that he knows this person and the growing alarm that he can't seem to remember how.

The mechanic looks worried. Very worried. Far more worried than angry.

Somehow, Max finds that even worse.

"You okay, mate?"

The question hangs awkwardly between them, and Max almost laughs at the absurdity of it.

His vision has been failing him for hours. Every breath pulls painfully beneath his ribs. His head feels as though it's trapped inside a vice that tightens a little more with each passing minute. He still hasn't taken off his helmet to look at the cut on his forehead. He can feel the dried blood on his skin, trailing down the side of his neck and disappearing beneath the collar of his race suit.

And then there's the rest of it.

The fact that he blacked out behind the wheel. The fact that he caused one of the biggest recent accidents at the very start of the season. 

Despite all that, the answer arrives automatically. The same answer as always.

"Yeah. I'm fine."

The mechanic doesn't look convinced. To be fair, nobody in the garage looks convinced.

Max can feel their eyes on him. Taking in the unnatural paleness of his skin beneath the helmet around his eyes. The slight unfocused quality in his gaze. The exhaustion that is becoming harder and harder to hide now that the adrenaline and fight-or-flight response are finally beginning to wear off.

"You don't look fine."

For a moment, one single small moment, Max considers telling the truth. Admitting that something is wrong, that he knows that something is not right with him. That he doesn't feel fine. That he feels like his body is slowly slipping out of his control and breaking apart. Admitting that he's scared. That he has no idea what's happening to him. That beneath the guilt, beneath the exhaustion, beneath everything else, there is a growing terror he can no longer ignore.

But the words never come. Just like they hadn't come with George.

When it comes to the things that matter most, the things buried deepest inside him, he always seems to lose the ability to speak. He becomes mute.

And somehow, that failure hurts almost as much as everything else.

"And I remember why people think the things they think about you."

George's voice still echoes mercilessly inside his head, so very clear and biting, and impossible to silence.

Max swallows hard.

"I've had worse."

Normally, that would earn a few snorts of laughter. A couple of exasperated smiles. Some joke, maybe. 

Today, nobody laughs.

The mechanic studies him for a moment longer, as if he can directly see the dried-up blood under his helmet and see the fevered sweat soaking his skin. 

"Medical checked you over?"

Max shakes his head.

He regrets it immediately.

A violent wave of dizziness crashes through him. The garage tilts alarmingly, the fluorescent lights smearing across his vision as his stomach drops. For one terrifying second, he thinks he might collapse right there in front of everyone. 

The floor seems to shift beneath his feet. The walls sway. The world spins dangerously.

Then, slowly, everything settles back into place.

"I'm going to my room," he says, practically dragging his feet as he walks.

Behind him, someone calls his name.

"Max. The media pen is asking when you'll be available."

A wave of nausea rises so suddenly it steals the air from his lungs.

Media. Interviews. Cameras. Questions.

“What happened?” “What were you thinking?” “Do you accept responsibility?” “Do you take full blame for the accident?”

The thought alone is unbearable. Standing beneath the glaring lights. Dozens of lenses fixed on him. Every single expression dissected. Every pause turned into some kind of silly, lying headline. Trying to answer questions when he can barely keep hold of a single coherent thought. Trying to stand when his legs already feel unsteady beneath him. It feels impossible.

"Later."

"But they're expecting you fairly soon..."

"Later."

His voice sounds rough. Abrasive. Almost rude. The edge in his tone is impossible to miss.

Under normal circumstances, he would have caught himself immediately. Take a breath. Softened his tone. Apologized. Smoothed over the rough edges before they could wound someone else. 

Right now, he simply doesn't have the energy to pretend.

"Okay..."

The hurt is almost imperceptible. Just a slight hesitation in the voice. A careful retreat from the fire. But Max hears it all the same.

Guilt pricks at him, but he cannot bring himself to care.

"At least get checked by medical now. Or as soon as possible," they say quietly. "You know it's mandatory."

The word mandatory lodges somewhere deep inside of him. Another obligation. Another person telling him where to go, what to do, how to behave. Another thing he cannot bear. 

"I said fucking later!"

The words come out harsher and louder than he intends once more. On the defensive. Like the kind of response that makes the person on the receiving end fall silent immediately.

And they do.

The guilt arrives almost at once. They don't deserve that. None of them do.

They're worried about him. They’re only doing their job and trying to look out for him. But every conversation feels like another weight being added to a structure that's already collapsing, and apologizing would require energy he no longer has.

You cannot change what is behind you while walking toward what awaits.

So he keeps walking. Away from the mechanics. Away from the engineers. Away from the people who, despite everything, still seem concerned about whether he's okay.

One foot in front of the other. That's all he can manage right now.

The garage grows quieter behind him as he walks away. No engine noises, no loud music, no hushed conversations or loud ones. All of it slowly fades into the background until only the sound of his own painful breathing remains.

By the time he reaches the door of his driver's room, exhaustion is clinging to him like a second skin.

He fumbles briefly with the handle before finally pushing it open. Then the door closes behind him with a soft click. And suddenly, he is alone.

The silence settles around him immediately. Heavy and suffocating.

There are no questions here. No cameras. No disappointed looks. No one asking whether he's hurt. No one asking whether he's alright.

Just him.

His thoughts.

His pain.

And George's voice, still echoing through his head with cruel persistence.

He leans back against the door, his entire body trembling as the last remains of adrenaline begin — or rather, finish — to disappear. Slowly, it fades away, leaving behind nothing but a vast emptiness.

He feels hollow. Like a glass that has been slowly emptied until not a single drop remains. Like a beach when the tide pulls away, leaving behind only silence and the traces of what was there moments before.

For a moment, he stays completely still, unable to make himself move. Then, with whatever little strength he has left, he manages to push himself away from the door.

He doesn’t bother turning on the light, leaving the room in near darkness, save for the faint glow beneath the door.

Breathing is becoming harder. His ribs pull painfully with every breath, each inhale reminding him that his body is starting to give in now that the adrenaline is no longer hiding anything. And for a brief moment, he deeply regrets not staying with his teammates. He should have accepted the help. He should have listened. He should have stopped pretending he was fine. 

He needs to get out of his suit. He needs to shower. He needs to go back out there and face them. Explain. Apologize. Give them something more than his rudeness and his anger. But most importantly, he needs to get checked.

Because this isn’t possible anymore. This isn’t normal.

Something is seriously wrong with him. And the worst part is that he knows it. He knows he was stupid for refusing medical treatment. He knows he should have accepted. He knows he should have realized something was wrong.

But maybe that’s just who he is. Maybe George was right. Maybe that’s all he really is.

Because after all…

He’s just a fucking idiot, isn’t he?

He reaches a trembling hand toward the zipper of his suit. It almost refuses to obey him. His fingers are shaking too violently.

He stays frozen for a moment, frowning down at his own hand like it has betrayed him. Like it belongs to someone else.

"Stop," he mutters under his breath.

He tries again. This time, the zipper moves a few inches before getting stuck halfway. His fingers can't seem to hold onto it properly. He clenches his jaw in frustration, but the strange sensation spreading through his hands quickly takes over.

They’re there. He can feel them. But not completely. Like there is an invisible thread connecting his brain to his body, and somewhere along the way, it has been cut. Leaving his movements delayed and disconnected, almost foreign.

Somehow, against all odds, he manages to remove his helmet, then his balaclava.

His sweat-soaked hair falls messily across his forehead, sticking in every direction. The cool air touches his face, but it doesn't help as much as it should. When he lifts his arms above his head to pass his hand through the sweaty hair, the room tilts slightly, and his vision blurs further. The edges of everything around him soften and shift, as if the world itself can't seem to stay still.

He lowers his arms slowly. Carefully.

Breathe.

It's fine.

It's just exhaustion. Just the adrenaline leaving his body after keeping him upright for far too long. Nothing else.

He just needs to wait for it to pass, to fade away. He takes a step toward the chair. And the floor moves. Not metaphorically. Not just a strange feeling. It genuinely feels like the ground is sliding beneath his feet, threatening to steal away the little balance he has left.

His entire body tenses, and he stops moving. As if one wrong movement will make everything holding him together finally collapse.

He tries to take a deep breath, searching for something in the air that might bring him back. Something that might make him feel in control again. 

He instinctively presses a hand against his chest, as if the simple touch could somehow contain everything inside him that is beginning to fall apart. His breathing escapes him in small, uneven, wheezing gasps, unable to find any steady rhythm.

The lights above him dance, distort, and stretch into blurred halos with uncertain edges. He blinks again and again, almost desperately, waiting for the world to return to the sharpness it once had.

But this time, nothing comes back.

The blur remains.

He tries to take another step, moving more on instinct than actual intention. He feels strangely detached, as if he is watching his own body attempt to function without truly belonging to him anymore.

His legs don’t respond quickly enough. His knees fail to carry him. His foot catches on the edge of a bag left on the floor, and for a moment, his mind fails to understand what is happening.

Then his balance disappears.

He falls forward.

Instinctively, his hands reach out, searching for something. The edge of the table. Anything. Something that can keep him from falling.

But he doesn’t know if he misses. Or if his fingers simply slip away.

He doesn’t know anymore. He doesn’t know anything anymore.

There is only that suspended moment where his body understands before his mind does. That brief, terrifying second where he feels himself falling.

His ribs seize violently when he twists, trying to catch himself, and the movement sends a sharp, electric jolt tearing through his entire body. The pain travels along his spine with such intensity that for a second he believes he’s gone blind. His balance gives out before he can recover, and he drops onto one knee, the impact reverberating through him like another collision. The force knocks the air–he barely has–straight out of his burning lungs, leaving behind nothing but a broken, wheezing gasp that barely sounds like him. 

He tries to inhale. Nothing. His chest locks. 

For one horrifying second, there is, for the second time that day, no air. No relief. No instinctive breath that comes naturally and keeps him going. There’s only the terrifying and abnormal absence of something so basic that he has never had to think about it before. His body demands oxygen, screams at him to breathe, to inhale and fill his lungs with rich air, but his lungs–his poor, broken lungs–refuse to cooperate. 

What if this is it? 

He can't get enough air. He tries again. Nothing. Panic detonates inside his chest.

No. No, come on. Breathe.

Another shallow inhale. Another failure.

What if I die here?

Alone. Behind a closed door.

Breathe.

Please.

I'm not dying.

He clings to the thought with desperate conviction.

I'm not dying.

Get up, Max.

Get up.

Get up.

His body doesn't move.

Get up.

Come on.

Get up.

Another small, strained sound escapes him. It’s not quite a groan nor is it quite a gasp, but something caught painfully between the two. A weak, broken wheeze, like air escaping from something that can no longer hold itself together. Like a balloon slowly deflating after someone has let go of the opening, losing the very thing that once gave it shape. 

Except this time, it is not a balloon.

It is him.

He fights against it, his hand clawing at his neck, his chest, against the panic rising up and up and up.

It feels like trying to breathe through a wall. Like his body has become a prison, and he is trapped inside it. 

A metallic tang floods his mouth, bitter enough to make his stomach churn, mingling with the sweat that has trickled down his face and onto his lips. It is everywhere now. It soaks through his fireproof layers he has not managed to peel off, clings to his skin, stings his eyes. His palms skid helplessly across the polished floor, slick with perspiration, unable to find the purchase they so desperately seek.

He forces himself to try again.

One last time.

He braces his hands beneath him and pushes, summoning whatever remains of his strength. Every muscle quivers beneath the strain. His arms shake so violently they can barely support his weight, while his legs tremble with an exhaustion that feels less physical than fundamental, as though his body has simply forgotten how to hold itself together.

For the briefest moment, he thinks he might make it.

Then everything gives way abruptly.

His limbs collapse beneath him as though the invisible threads holding him upright have been severed all at once. His right shoulder strikes the floor first, the impact reverberating through bone and muscle with sickening force before the rest of him follows. His head collides with the ground a heartbeat later, the crack echoing far louder than it should, sending another violent burst of white-hot pain through his skull.

He might have passed out for a few minutes because he cannot recall when he started gasping for air.

His mouth opens and closes without purpose, pulling at air that never seems to reach his lungs. It feels absurdly like a fish stranded on dry land, gills flaring in desperate, useless rhythm.

His fingers begin to tingle. Not just his fingers…His hands. His forearms. His lips.

His face feels strangely cold, as though every drop of blood has abandoned it at once. His hearing dulls beneath the frantic pounding of his racing pulse. It fills his skull so completely he can almost believe it’s the only thing left inside him.

His body weighs a thousand pounds.

He tries to move. Nothing.

No…that isn’t true. He does move. Barely. A pitiful shift of the shoulder against the floor. His muscles obey, but sluggishly, as though every command has to travel through wet cement before it reaches them.

He tries to roll onto his back. Maybe if he can just change position. Maybe then he’ll be able to breathe. 

The effort alone steals what little air he has left.

His heart stumbles. A horrible, uneven flutter in his chest. Then another.

For the first time since climbing out of the car, genuine fear sinks its teeth into him.

No.

No.

Not like this. 

He doesn’t want to die.

The thought arrives with startling clarity.

Not here. Not alone. Not before…

His eyelids grow unbearably heavy. They ache with exhaustion, weighted by something stronger than fatigue. Much stronger than sleep. They keep sinking despite him forcing them open, each blink lasting longer than the last.

No.

Stay awake. 

Please.

He doesn’t know who he’s pleading with.

His own body perhaps. 

Death.

God.

Anyone listening. 

He fights. Of course he does. Stubborn until the bitter end, that’s what everyone always says about Max Verstappen. Too stubborn for his own good. Too proud. Too relentless. 

Even now, with his vision swimming and his chest burning and every instinct screaming at him to surrender, he fights.

Just one more breath.

Come on. Just breathe.

Air in. Air out. 

Again. 

Again.

But the edges of his vision begin to curl inward slowly, patiently. Like the velvet curtains in an old theatre drawing close before the final act. 

Red.

Everything is red.

He hates red.

Red means warning lights and red flags. Red means blood. Red means crashes.

He had always preferred blue.

Blue like the endless summer sky stretching farther than the eye can follow. Blue like the sea, vast enough to swallow every fear ever spoken aloud. 

Blue…

Blue like George’s eyes. 

The realization slips into his mind so quietly, so naturally, it almost doesn’t hurt. 

He may never see them again.

He wonders, absurdly, whether George is still angry. Whether those had truly been the last words they would ever speak to one another. 

He wants to tell him—

He isn’t sure what…That he’s sorry. That he hadn’t meant it. That despite everything he…

The ringing in his ears softens into a distant hum. 

The panic leaves first. Then the pain. Then the weight of his own body. His cheek rests against the cold floor, and for a fleeting moment it feels almost comforting.

The darkness does not rush him. It simply reaches out a patient hand, and this time he’s too tired to refuse.

And everything falls away.

The first thing Max tastes when consciousness finds him again is bitterness, metallic and stale upon his tongue. Then comes the cold: the hard floor beneath his cheek, seemingly leaching its way through his skin. For a while he does not know where he is. His mind drifts in that strange country between sleep and waking, where nothing has a name, and nothing belongs to him. 

The silence is enormous. Omnipresent. Even the ringing that had softened to a distant humming before has completely vanished, leaving behind an emptiness so stark, so vivid and complete that he can almost hear the blood moving sluggishly through his veins.

His eyelids tremble open. The room arrives slowly, with no rush, as if time is infinite. Through the blur in his vision, he can discern the leg of a table, then the familiar shape of his backpack lying on its side where he last left it this morning, the zipper half-open with the sleeve of a shirt spilling out of it. Ordinary things. His things. His driver’s room. The recognition does not bring comfort to his being, only a strange and distant ache, because he cannot remember how he came to be lying on the floor. The memories return in pieces—the slight pain, the confusion, and the crash…George, the argument, words spoken with too much frustration and anger, words that had been held for far too long. After that it’s all a blur. Voices, pain and darkness.

He tries to move—he’s sure he’s already tried before—but a violent bolt of pain tears through his ribs before he has even managed to lift himself just a bit off the cold, unforgiving floor. It travels through his chest and into his back with such a force that a cry—a wail of pain—instinctively tears from his throat, or at least he tries to cry out. Nothing comes. Only a faint, broken whistle escapes his mouth, so weak and breathless that it frightens him more than the pain does. He lies there, startled by the sound, so unfamiliar to his ears, and tries to draw another breath. It comes shallowly and reluctantly, as though his lungs have forgotten the shape of their own purpose. 

His throat is parched, his tongue thick and useless against the roof of his mouth, and he cannot rid himself of the bitter, metallic taste coating his tongue. Something warm slips from the corner of his mouth as he struggles for breath, trailing sluggishly down his chin before falling onto the floor beneath him. In the dimness, he watches the dark stain bloom against the pale surface.

For one dreadful moment as he stares at the dark spot on the floor, he wonders whether this is how death begins. 

Not with some grand finality which is often portrayed on screens, but with the gradual loosening of everything that once seemed so normal, so permanent.

He doesn’t want to die.

He doesn’t want his life to end here, on the cold floor of his driver’s room, because of one stupid mistake made during one stupid race, followed by one stupid argument that, only a while ago, had seemed important enough to consume him. Now it all feels so grotesquely inconsequential. All of it shrinks into insignificance beside the possibility that he may never wake up again.

He wants to live.

God, he wants to live.

Not merely in the abstract, not as some instinctive biological imperative, but with a desperation so great that it frightens him even more. He wants to live enough to be bored again. Enough to complain day in and day out. Enough to be irritated by things that, in this moment, he would give anything to experience once more. 

He wants another dreary morning in which the alarm goes off way too early, and he curses beneath his breath before dragging himself from bed. He wants another race weekend, another interminable and useless briefing, another can of Red Bull forgotten somewhere until it has gone room temperature. He wants to hear his name being hollered across the paddock until he grows thoroughly sick of it. He wants eager journalists thrusting microphones beneath his nose and asking asinine questions he has no interest in answering. He wants another victory, perhaps, but he would even settle for another disappointing and frustrating Sunday, another ordinary day that leaves him with nothing particularly memorable to take home. 

He wants another glance at George when the latter isn’t looking.

But he also wants another fleeting moment in which their eyes do meet across a room, and neither of them says anything nor looks away.

He would even accept another argument.

Another opportunity to be angry and then regret it.

Another chance to maybe say I’m sorry.

All his life, he has treated tomorrow as though it were some sort of inheritance. As though there would always be more of it waiting for him. More mornings, more races, more of everything. He had never considered the possibility that time could simply run out. That somewhere, imperceptibly, there might be one single day disguised as an ordinary one, a final conversation whose significance would only become apparent once it was irrevocably beyond reach. There had always been a long serpentine road laid in front of him, and he had never stopped once to wonder where it ended.

Now, lying on the floor, he can see the end of it. He can almost hear the clock.

There had always been a clock.

He had simply never listened to it.

He swallows, but his throat barely permits the motion, and his chin trembles despite his efforts to still it. A small, wheezing hiccup escapes him, pitifully soft against the emptiness of the room. He tries to suppress another, pressing his bloodied lips together as though shame might somehow preserve the last scraps of his dignity.

It doesn’t. 

Another broken little sound catches in his chest, and he turns his face toward the floor, desperate not to be seen, even though there is no one there to witness his state.

And that’s the problem.

His eyes sting. A tear slips slowly toward his temple, disappearing into his hair, and he scarcely notices it. There is something almost childish in the smallness of the wish that comes next. He wants someone to open the door. He wants to hear a familiar voice calling his name. He wants the simple mercy of another person noticing that he’s been gone for too long.

Why is nobody there? Why is nobody coming?

Surely someone has looked at the empty space he should have filled and felt, if only for a second, that something–someone- was missing…

His questions and prayers have no answer.

He gathers what remains of his strength and pushes against the floor. His arms shake beneath him, his ribs burn like lava with every movement, but somehow, against all odds, he manages to lift himself, just a little, just enough. The room spirals and sways, and for a moment he thinks he might be sick, or fall unconscious again, but then he sees it–the small, thin line of light beneath the door.

It’s not far. 

He begins to crawl.

There’s nothing graceful in it. He drags himself forward with trembling hands, his legs dragging uselessly behind him, pausing whenever his lungs refuse another meager breath, his body moving on instinct long after his strength has begun to abandon him altogether. The door inches closer. The strip of light widens. It feels absolutely beautiful, that little piece of brightness beneath the door, like proof that the world is still waiting on the other side. That it’s not reduced to this small room.

“Help,” he tries to say.

It comes out as nothing more than a cracked whisper.

“Somebody…Help,” he croaks, forcing the words through his burning throat as he drags himself another few inches towards the door. If he can reach it, maybe—just maybe—someone will hear him. Someone will open it. Someone will find him before it’s too late and fix everything. 

He stretches one trembling hand towards the light, his fingertips scraping uselessly against the floor.

And then strength drains from him all at once, as though someone has simply pulled the plug.

His arm gives way beneath him.

The panic surges one final time as his vision begins to tunnel, the room narrowing into a thin and trembling slit of light.

No. No, no, please–

And then, as though his mind is offering him one last kindness, it gives him blue. 

Not red. 

Blue.

He sees it all with a strange and almost painful clarity: The cloudless summer sky he had longed for, stretching endlessly above him, the vastness of the ocean disappearing far beyond the horizon. And then George’s eyes. That soft, impossible blue that he had spent so much time pretending not to notice. He can see them perfectly now, clearer than he ever has before, and for a moment he is almost grateful for it. He thought he would never be able to see them again.

His favourite colour…

He doesn’t know why that thought hurts so much.

Perhaps because blue has always meant something endless to him. Something without borders. Something that goes on and on and on.

And for the first time, he understands that he had believed his life would do the same.

He doesn’t want to let go. He has so much left unsaid, so much left undone. He still has words lodged somewhere deep beneath his ribs that he never found the courage to bring into the light of day. Words he had put off and convinced himself could wait because there was time. And because surely, eventually, they would find their way to one another.

But he knows, deep down now, that they would never be able to have their time together like they both so longed for—or so he hoped George did as well…before all of this happened.

The thought is almost unbearably bittersweet.

All that time they might have had, and neither of them had reached for it. 

All those situations and moments that could have been, left in a corner because there was always a tomorrow after tomorrow.

There isn’t one now.

The blue begins to dissipate behind his eyes, slowly washed away by that bloody red. It blooms across his vision like an old wound reopening, an old threat coming back to haunt him. Perhaps his mind has chosen the colour for him. Or perhaps, in some final act of cruelty, it is there as a punishment for his cowardice, for every moment he hesitated, every word he swallowed, every single feeling he was too afraid to name.

In the end, Max doesn’t have the strength to wonder.

The light beneath the door fades until nothing remains of it. 

Soon enough, the room falls dark.

And somewhere behind the door he so desperately had tried to reach, the world keeps breathing without him.